##VIDEO ID:ChjjQ6EYF88## I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you welcome to the South River Board of Education October 17th regular meeting uh statement of adequate notice in compliance with the open public meeting act chapter 231 laws of 1975 of the state of New Jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the South River Board of Education was provided in the following manner on January 17th 2024 the notice was delivered to the office of the South River burough Clerk and posted at the Board of Education administration building on January 17th 2024 the notice was faxed mail to the following newspapers the home News Tribune The Star Ledger on January 17th 2024 the notice was posted at the South River burough clerk's office Mr Rosa would you please call the role Mr basac Mr basac has been excused Mr buson here Mrs Bush M bush has been excused Mrs burn here Mrs La here Mr neelson here Mrs Sadowski here Mrs y Yao here Mrs orbanic here Kelvin Sami did I say it right caline caline Sami yes perfect I'll get it right I promise we have a quum okay thank you very much uh the first item of business on our agenda are the minutes so for uh tonight's agenda we have the pre-meeting minutes and the regular meeting minutes for September okay board members uh what is your pleasure on the minutes move the reading of the minutes motion by vice president neelson second second by Miss Sadowski are there any questions or edits on the minutes all in favor I thank you okay next item on the agenda we have couple uses of facilities Mr Rosa on the agenda we have uh five use facilities which are number 1621 through 1625 board members do you have any pleasure on the use of facilities move the use of facilities in accordance with board policies motion by vice president neelen second second by m l uh any questions or comments seeing none all in favor I I thank you next item on our agenda are the financial reports m l thank you be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby certifies that it is in receipt of the financial report which indicates that no major account has been overexpanded and that sufficient funds are available to meet the district's Financial Obligations for the remainder of the fiscal year the finance committee recommends that the amended reports of the board secretary and The Treasure of school monies for June 2024 and the reports of the board secretary and The Treasure of school monies for July 2024 be approved and ISO move thank you we have a motion by m l second by Vice President neelon are there any questions or comments on the financial report saying none all in favor I thank you uh at this time we're going to turn the meeting over to our superintendent of schools for her report Dr zercher thank you Mrs urbanic I have several items to report today and we also have a presentation I want to begin with our dance studio and uh the courses that we are cond in that dance studio we have officially opened the studio which is in the High School annex we have two levels of dance classes that are right now in um in effect and the studio is also being used for yoga and for lunchtime clubs the town has asked us for facilities usage as well for their Zumba recreational class and we are even looking for our dance courses to move into competition level they are interested in potentially competing as well so so far we've had very good feedback this space was funded as part of the grant that funded our High School annex and it certainly looks like it will serve our students and our community our community for many years to come I'd also like to speak about our multi-purpose turf field that is now officially open as well we've already had eight soccer games including Middle School girls middle school boys our Varsity Boys and our varsity girls teams have already played on the new Turf and our athletes are sharing a lot of good feedback about the field and their appreciation for really having that upgraded opportunity to play the field also provides an educational learning space for our elementary school during an organized recess period and also our Middle School who uses it for fed classes so so far we're getting a lot of use out of the field and uh all good feedback in that regard safety and student well-being we continue to present assemblies and programs to support our student safety and well-being the focus has been using on kind appropriate and respectful language srpd partnered with us and with the district to collaborate and participate in these programs with an emphasis on the potential criminal impact of using threatening or biased language each time that we present these opportunities to to students we follow it up with a letter home to parents we show parents exactly what that presentation looks like and we're hoping that parents can then reinforce these messages at home and partner with us in that regard registration and residency we did open officially our Central registration and residency office that is housed over at the modular in the primary school parking lot and we now have the opportunity for parents to come in between office hours 8:00 to 3:00 p.m. to register students in person or really receive some support for the online registration process uh also to show proof of residency or find out more about our School District programs or offerings if they are interested in moving into our community into the borrow we continue to provide on-site evening registration as well we provide support and transition services in multiple languages that is provided on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30 to 7:30 at South River Middle School so now you have different opportunities during the day and evening to come in and work with us on registration The Residency office will also be really supporting the district in compliance and making sure and checking residency documents for our existing and new students we are going to engage in a districtwide random residency check this spring and we will be sending out information to parents in this regard probably after the December December break in order for them to prepare accordingly in my superintendence report I also included the website link for registration and residency office and finally I'd like to speak to 21st century we have about 275 students grades 3 to 12 they are enrolled in our after school program we provide homework ass assistance academic remediation extracurricular clubs and enrichment opportunities uh registration at the elementary school is now closed we are way over our initial registration um quota but we have gone ahead and uh opened it up to more students because really the the interest is there and we want to try to to provide the opportunity to as many kids as we can we are working on some Logistics related to to the program in terms of pickup and dismissal procedures and and so on we're ironing out some some details there but overall we are um really into the school year now for two months almost and and have been able to provide this opportunity continuously please reach out I also uh place in my superintendent report so please reach out to our programs director and the website for 21st century for more information than there also in my superintendence report today you have to approve the Hib district and school grade report for school year 2223 and you also have confirmed PBS 1 two and three to review and approve as well and now I will turn it over to Mr Matt Crouch our director of student Services who's going to do the school self assessment for determining grades under the anti-bullying Bill of Rights for 23 24 and 2223 district and school official grades report that's the official title it's a mouthful it is a mouthful thank you Dr zercher and good evening board member members of the board uh tonight I'm going to discuss the uh 2023 2024 School self- assessment for determining our grades under the anti-bullying Bill of Rights act as well as looking at our official District school report from the 2223 school year um what is this it it is required by the commissioner of Education that every school looks at themselves and does a self assessment on their antibullying bu anti-bullying Bill of Rights right act and it's a self assessment tool that runs from July 1st 2023 through July June 30th 2024 uh it's a self- assessment tool that includes eight core elements and then we have to look at them all and with the uh school safety team and the school climate teams assign a rating based on the criteria that's established by the state what does this look like the eight different uh core elements are hip programs and approaches to other initiatives training on board approved hi Hib policy uh other staff instruction and training programs curriculum instruction on Hib and related informational skills Hib Personnel School level Hib incident reporting procedure Hib investigation procedures as well as the Hib reporting it goes from a zero to a three three is exceeding and zero is not meeting um this year our grade report um I'm sorry I apologize last year's grade report uh we had a total score in all of the buildings with the lowest being a 76 and all and some of them meeting all the standards that were required that exceeded all the standards that were required uh and this following year we did our s assessment and we did see a dip in our numbers and the reason why we did see that dip in our numbers is because we feel that we need to engage the community more we're facing a lot of social media problems right now trending things that students are finding themselves doing and it's a fight against something that we really have no control over but we're doing our absolute best and in my assessment the best way to address that is not just through the programs that we're extensively running here but the best way to do that is to involve the community members and that's why I had our teams look at this and really analyze whether we were utilizing the community in the way that we should be and I've decided that we should denote that we're not and that gives us that ability to grow and show change that's so important especially in the educational setting so what's awesome about it what we've done um we exceeded all the requirements in eight areas of reporting we had accurate investigation and reporting procedures we had effective programs being offered to the students and we've had op ample opportunities to reflect and use that reflection to then imp improve our programming what can we do better well we can increase our data collection as well as our data analysis we can continue to coordinate District wide programs as we have been and then we can also expand support teams as I was just saying with the community which is so important we need the backing of our community to be successful in this aim when you look at it as I said there is a dip but we still exceed what the state expects us to have so if we were to put this into a grade we're in the 90s right we're doing really really well but we can always do better and that's what we want to do here in South River um I would like to open up the floor to anyone who may have any questions are key because they're one of the people who help us both initiate investigation and also keep us involved in what the trends are that are going on ludent one of the things I teach and student this was terrible that's a lot you say something I mentioned my sister-in-law I remember in fourth grade was a didn't teach bring bring this to the front of the room why didn't walk that down the Flor excuse me Mr Sternberg there'll be a opportunity for you to comment quickly I started no I'm sorry I'll I'll address what you're saying right there our teachers are our front line and they are held responsible for any type of reporting that is necessary if they fail to do so that's a reflection on their so I just want answer really quick thank you there's a public session right after that to address any agenda items which at that point in time thank you very can be done thank you Mr crou you very much I appreciate your time thank you Mr Crouch thank you Mr okay we're going to be uh taking care of that under our consent resolution at this time the board is going to open up the meeting to visitors and this is to address agenda items only excuse me Mrs zban yes did we move the superintendent report we're going to do that under consent afterwards okay just yes yes I thought that that's what I included I'm sorry if I didn't say that so at this time the public May address agenda items only if you come to the microphone please state your name and address my is and please keep your comments limited to a 10-minute time limit this is on first call I listened to some of the uh videos that were posted Mone wasn't working okay we're we're going to get you assistance could be it was shut off we have another mic uh there it is okay okay good my name is Norman shinberg and I live at 24 new Street South River New Jersey and I just want to address the bullying things since I was cut off I'll say what it was from my experience as a student and of course that was you know 60 years ago one of the main causes I thought of bullying that that it remained was the teachers did nothing that they are certainly the front line and I mentioned that to my uh sister-in-law who's also a little bit younger than I am but not much why didn't the teachers do something for this kid and mostly it's it's kids that have no friends that are bullied if kids have a lot of friends they're probably not bullied um and she said to me probably because the teachers don't like the kids anymore kid any more than the other students do I don't know if that's true or not but I mean that is the front line obviously against bullying as the teachers and a lot of bullying especially below High School in elementary school and maybe even into Middle School could probably be greatly reduced if the teachers were really into it and took it upon themselves to reduce that bullying and protected kids that were bullied I really wasn't bullied very much in in school but I saw other kids that were and I saw it the teachers were were mainly at fault for letting it happen and uh just what I want to say my opinion on B the qual teachers rais and not with social media of course but otherwise so I heard you say that our teachers uh that your experience was that teachers did nothing but I just want to be very clear I feel the opposite our teachers do everything our teachers do everything everything in their power I also I also want to say that my two kids went to South River High School and they were not voting they never reported to me this was before the anti-bullying forent so I have no experience whatsoever with bullying the South River I don't know whether it's a problem or not a problem only had the experience of what I saw when I was a student so I'm glad to hear that our students that our teachers are very much engaged in anti- 100% I can't say enough about everything that they do thank you Mr shinberg is there anyone else from the public wishing to address any agenda items at this time on first call second call third call this public portion is closed there will be a public portion at the end of the meeting for the public to discuss any items that they feel are interest to the board uh at this time we are going to go with uh the rest of our agenda under President of the board we will be approving under the consent resolution the final report of the 2023 2024 board goals which uh we did discuss now we're going to move on to our committee reports our Athletics extracurricular Mr busen nothing on the agenda for today okay thank you buildings and grounds vice president Nelson thank you madam president the buildings and grounds commission after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of the additional item 7.1 on the agenda as listed including routine items thank you our finance m l thank you so much um I'd like to do provide a small summary and then I will um State our statement uh the agenda includes approvals for various contracts and services related to the school year such as water testing Engineering Services for the prek Edition copy leasing it also addresses tax requisitions line item transfers change orders for ongoing projects like the Early Learning Center and new contracts for services such as cabling installation painting fencing alarm systems landscaping and snow removal are all proposed for approval the finance committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommend approval of the items 8.1 through 8.6 with additional items 8.7 through 8.4 14 on the agenda as listed including routine items and that is all I have this evening thank you uh would you please continue with the instruction yes thank you um as Miss Bush likes to do she likes to summarize Dr triano's um monthly report so in doing so uh to summarize his report at the start of the school year both new and experienced staff are supporting students academically with dual enrollment opportunities available through Partnerships with local colleges is allowing students to earn college credits at reduced rates the district's also focusing on professional development development offering sessions on social and emotional learning and strategies for supporting multilingual Learners aligned with castle and state competencies additionally recent data from the New Jersey student learning assessments uh was presented to us last month and two nominees were selected for the wall of fame to be honored at an upcoming ceremony so that provides the report information in terms of the agenda it outlines approvals for professional development and travel expenses as well as new and revised curriculum which has continued uh all summer long into this agenda which has been critical it includes approvals for ATA District student placements preschool tuition field trips um and additionally uh which is really important uh nowadays it's the approval of District student observers and interns for the 2425 school year uh is being proposed me switch my paper so the instruction committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval for the items 9.1 through 9.6 with no additional items on the agenda as listed including routine items and that is all I have for instruction thank you thank you uh there are no items under negotiation our policy and legislation Miss burn thank you we have one item the policy and legis legislation committee after review of all the items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of the item 11.1 with no additional items on the agenda as those including routine items thank you our human resources committee Mr neelson thank you madam president the human resources committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent we recommends approval of the additional items 12.1 to it to me 12.15 on the agenda as listed including routine items thank you and our safety and risk management committee Miss Sadowski thank you there is one item on the agenda for this month the safety and risk management committee after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends approval of the item 13.1 with no additional items on the agenda as listed including routine items thank you okay thank you uh if there are no comments or questions on any of the committee reports we are going to now return to the consent resolution and at this time I'll ask Mr Rosa could you please read the consent resolution the South River Board of Education by means of a consent resolution adopt various resolutions of a routine and non-controversial nature at one time time whereas the below listed resolutions are hereby adopted by the said Board of Education and whole as if the same were individually acted upon and those are under superintendent of schools 3.1 to 3.5 under President of the board 5.1 under buildings and grounds 7.1 under Finance 8.1 through 8.14 under instruction 9.1 through 9.6 under policy and legislation 11.1 the human resources 12.1 through 12.15 and under safety and risk management 13.1 thank you is there a motion for the consent resolution neelson move the consent resolution is R we have a motion by vice president neelsen is there a second second there's a second by m y Yao are there any questions on any of the items on the agend on under the consent resolution or anyone who needs to abstain on any of the items seeing none all in favor thank you moving on in our agenda we now have the report of our school community relations m y ya thank you the school community relations after review of all items on this month's agenda and upon recommendation of the superintendent recommends the approval of of the item 14.1 with no additional items on the agenda as listed including routine items thank you thank you our school board burough Council Lea is on committee Mr neelsen nothing to report tonight Madam president but again councilman is in in uh the audience here we have an open line of communication he reaches out to me the weekend before his meetings has asked if there's anything uh I would like for him to bring forward at their meetings and I greatly appreciate that it's nice to see you again that's all I have tonight Madam president thank you Mr Vice President uh our PTA Lea is on Miss Sadowski thank you so I do have a couple updates uh Primary School Fall Festival will be taking place tomorrow um there also tomorrow is the MC teacher night at McDonald's that's on Racetrack Road in East Brunswick I believe the PTA is getting 15% of all sales from 3: to 8 I believe it is um they're also selling ELC t-shirts uh your books are on sale and for elementary they just concluded their penny wars last Friday they're also selling Ram blankets and they are hosting a Halloween dance on Friday November 1st um all membership information on how to sign up to be a PTA member is located in the eams um on the individual PTA Facebook pages and I believe that's I have thank you thank you and our South River Public Library Lea is on Mr busen and the library with the recreation department is having a trunk and treat October 26 at 2 p.m and your book fair is the week of the election on Tuesday to Friday that's all I have thank you uh we have our student board representative here this evening Miss amii is there any report from you no reports tonight could hear no report this evening okay thank you very much uh is there any old or new business to come before the board at this time can I do a plug for the uh third annual Halloween High School celebration which will be on Thursday October 24th from 6:00 to 8: at the high school and it says join us for an evening of fun where kids are invited to wear costumes and trick-or treat in a safe environment and it's $5 per child admission paid at the door children 12 and under oops hold on my phone just went dark uh children must be accompanied by an adult the adults are free and the admission includes one trick-or treat bag and it's been quite a success over the last couple of years so I just wanted to make sure it was in the eam um it was shared in the parent group um but just in case if people don't get either at least you know we're putting it out there great thank you and Mr Pon do you have any report for us no we spoke about uh things in executive session nothing for public okay thank you uh Miss L our payment of bills let me get there bills go it's coming all right the finance committee recommends that all bills presented having been certified by the school business administrator board secretary be paid as listed and I so move we have a motion by m l is there a second by vice president neelsen all in favor thank you okay this time the board is going to once again open the meeting to the public and this is for items that they have any concern or comment for the board if you come to the podium please state your name and address and please keep your comments limited to a 10-minute time limit this is on first call on second call and on third call this public portion is now closed you have 10 minutes Mr shinberg norber Sir okay I think you can stop tapping it okay thank you yeah I just don't want it to break is an energy saver thing well you're not using it for a while oh yeah so we just need someone talking nonstop okay don't give my yeah it saves the battery I guess okay um I've been talking for uh I guess probably well over a year at this point giving talks about school uh uh security and uh SRO in the school and I think because the talk spread out well over a year in very short segments that it probably comes out very disjointed and doesn't seem coherent so I fig probably is now a time to give some summary of what I was saying so I'm going to uh go over a little bit of a summary over here of what I've been talking about uh okay South River is spending several $100,000 per year on school security and the nation as a whole is spending billions soon there will be an armed police officer in every school in the country the way things are going when that happens 15% of the nation's Municipal Police Force will be in schools even though schools are the safest place anywhere for our students police departments the experts in deciding where to put their resources did not put these offices in schools so who did put put police offices and schools it was the parents who demanded it and politicians who went along with their voters as an example Le Texas recently passed a law requiring all high school and middle schools to have armed police officers in all schools from what I read many school boards in Texas are ignoring the Mandate that they do not have the funds to implement why did parents Demand on guards and other safety measures implemented in schools it was a false belief that children were being gunned down in large numbers of schools across the country and it might happen in their school to their chart is out of fear not reason what is the reality what does the data show schools are so safe that no student in New Jersey has ever been shot and died on a CA on a New Jersey K through2 school campus over at least the last 50 years while the school has been in session or just before just after dismissal in New Jersey outside of school about a thousand children and teenss have been shot and killed over that same time but none in school when one considers that the old children of school age are in school and that they spend the large part of their waking hours in school those facts show that schools have always been incredibly safe and still are they are the safest place anywhere for our children even safer than being home of course I I've piled loads of statistics of that for the first year naturally a student is about 100 times more likely to be killed in the community than on aocc 12 school campus this ratio has been constant over at least the last 30 years also the small number of students that AR killed on campus are most likely to be killed outside of the school build school shootings are so rare that a typical school can expect a single shooting this is Nationwide we're much much better than the nation can expect a single school shooting Deb every 10,000 years and a mass shooting the tipe feared most by students once every 100,000 years that's per school and this is not just a number I calculated other experts have come up the same numbers it's a simple calculation in the statistics and data I gave you one of the papers shows how that calculation is made to continue the expenditure of billions of dollars per year in the last decade on school security with then school shootings is unwarranted and ineffective I already presented to you public studies that showed that schools that have oned security guards have the same number of school shootings in schools that do not have on security guards I already presented to you a published paper that showed that schools that have armed security guards have more casualties more casualties from a shooting start and school do not have armed guard about three times higher when you have an armed guard that's perlex people have come up with potential theories why but if it's just desort who knows but certainly the the the the police officer does not reduce casualty the shootings take place too quickly or they can do nothing that's what the data shows also this paper is widely cited I've also presented reports from government organizations that studied how school shootings take place and concluded that arm guards are unlikely to prevent or affect the outcome of the school shooting that was the national threat assessment center of the Secret Service the national um was it the national um police foundation that did a study of averted school shootings and others also I could not find any studies that came to any other conclusions school security has has recently become a multibillion it's billion school security has recently become a multi-billion dollar industry with its own paid lobbyists salesman and Consultants pushing false narrative that schools are unsafe and that their products will make them safe but don't believe them remember I showed you those uh bulletproof backpacks and binders that are bulletproof and bulletproof Shields the kids and and rooms that are bulletproof and of course the SRO is the biggest expect they don't do any good that's with all this artistic show with all the experts show I can go into that in more detail but I don't do any good as a member of the school board you are not politicians and you should not let yourself be intimidated by voters or parents if you follow the ad unbiased experts and not the demands of frightened parents you would spend very little on school security much less than you are spending now the school board and Town Council this together are currently wasting about $50 per household per year in South River on unnecessary ineffective school security that's what about the $300,000 a year comes to based upon about 6,000 households about $50 per household remember it wasn't much more than that they turned down building putting down a very building a very nice building for preschool I think 150 what was the number that would for the taxpayers a month was it 100 a year 150 anybody want to answer that $12 was that how like $12 a month $12 a month so it's only about 100 you know it's less than that it's um it's 12 * 12 15 yeah it's about 150 so I I'm not saying you should do this but I wonder if you put to a vote do you want to spend $50 a year for school Securities whether it would go through the count or not who knows I don't know anyway on my next talk I will give you my opinion on what you actually should be doing uh don't get excited I don't have any really good Solutions and I probably don't have anything you haven't thought of but I mean to end the talk I would do that that'll be on my next talk um my talk isn't over how much more time do I have you have three minutes a little less I want to give out just in case you want to cop what I just said they want to show it to other people I'll give out what I said I want to talk a little bit about more about SCH don't talk to the chairs one of the things that some schools have implemented is metal detectors because there are guns that are brought into school very rarely are they used in school shooting the students generally bring them into their own protection or other reasons but schools have metal detectors will metal detectives work will they keep guns out of school probably not for a number of reasons first you have two minutes there's two minutes there are guns like this the bottom part of this gun is plastic the top part is metal I we told is the most common kind of gun that's brought into school it's a tourus g2c pistol and it can get through a school metal detector we not get through the TSA metal detector but why should get through a school metal detector not a TSA metal detector course the TSA metal detector sets sets their metal detectors very sensitive will pick up coins in my pocket with cell phone Keys suppose you decided to do that with your schools it takes about 2 or 3 minutes for somebody to go through security at TSA emptying out their pockets uh school students would have to take off their backpacks or or your carry on luggage putting it through imagine you spend 2 minutes per student you have 800 students that's 26 hours to goes through the metal detector through the math 3 minutes * 800 number of minutes that's 20 6 hours so people have said to me we have more than one metal detector course that's silly you have two metal detectors be 13 hours so you'll have to set them in a sensitivity that students who just walk through normally which means they will miss things is what I read online will miss things like cell phones keys and other things and has I will miss things like these guns but even if you have said it very precisely will it really stop them no this thing are smart than you think they know just what you're going to do some students simply place the guns under the fence into the bushes in the athletic field and later on in the day go out and get them another student simply put in the bushes in front of the student went into the school with other people pull the fire alarm and everyone come out and simply shot whatever he wanted lining people up at the metal detector is a great way for M shooting anyway the students are up uh as far as you clear backpacks DRS go or remember the Georgia shooting the student brought in a uh assult rifle his assault rifle is not disassemblable some of them are you can assemble them assemble the three smaller pieces so how do he get it in well it took me I think about 10 minutes to figure out how to get the the gun how to get this assault rifle into the school and I realized it would you clear backpacks wouldn't do it you simply wrapped it up in poster paper and walked in it just looked like a poster so they can wrap up the gun in anything the clear backp passer pointless the metal detectors won't work and so on thank you Mr shinberg is there anyone else from the public with to speak on First Call On Second call on third call the public portion is closed at this time we have no other items for business on the agenda do we have a motion for adjournment neon motion by vice president neelson second second by Miss burn all in favor I thank you this meeting is concluded see you next month yes pleas